> Since when is studying, practicing and preparing, gaming the system?

Fair question.. the problem today is the emphasis on studying and practicing irrelevant things like memorizing algorithms. That's become the paved short-cut to well paying jobs so naturally people do it. To the point that even the people doing the hiring have forgotten what it meant to be actually qualified, not just a leetcode memorizer.

If you need to hire a musician for your band, do you pick the person who has spent six months practicing a handful of chords to perfection, but possibly doesn't know anything about composing songs or jamming with the band? Or do you pick someone who has been composing and playing live shows for 10+ years?

The first one is just academic memorization that has some value, but very little. The second one is real-life experience that's worth a lot.

I have zero musical skills but even I have managed to learn to play a couple songs on the piano by sheer memorization of which buttons to press in what sequence. If you ask me to play one of those songs it might seem like I know what I'm doing even though I'm completely incompetent in music. That's the equivalent of hiring for software roles based on leetcode memorization.

I don't think its common for people to try to "memorize leetcode."

Most interview loops at places that do algorithm interviews are 2-3 rounds and each round will have up to 2 questions. Its very very unlikely the interviewee will only encountered questions they have memorized.

More likely, the interviewee encounters questions similar to ones they have solved and they know the pattern around solving, then are able to apply their learned skill to the new problem.

Similar to your music analogy: you can absolutely be a strong guitar player in a band if you just memorize a few different chord shapes and can apply them up and down the fretboard to different keys (lookup the "CAGED system").